AudioControl started out 30 years ago building sound
measurement and correction products, such as spectrum analyzers and
equalizers.

They have come a long way since then, and now make
processors and power amplifiers, but still market the spectrum analyzer too,
the SA-3052 being their current model.

They serve three markets: Car, Home, and Professional.
The AudioControl Savoy Seven-Channel Power Amplifier, reviewed here, is
labeled "Professional Installer's Guide" on the instruction manual cover.

The Design

The Savoy has seven channels, delivering 150 watts RMS
into 8 ohms. AudioControl has two other models, the Pantages, which has 200
watts x 5, and the Avalon, which has 200 watts x 2.

All of the AudioControl power amplifiers, including the
Savoy, use H-Class topology. This means that the voltage rail supplying the
output stage has more than one level. It is not a continuously varying rail,
but has several fixed voltages. This allows the amplifier to run cooler than
otherwise, setting the rail voltage to only the relative level that is
required. As a result, the Savoy does not need heat sinks.

The Savoy has balanced XLR and unbalanced RCA inputs, and
from the circuit diagram, it appears that pins 1 and 3 are not simply
shorted, meaning that a balanced cable connecting the preamp to the Savoy
can be beneficial, reducing noise that is picked up along the
way. However, the internal amplifier circuit is not balanced.

Clip protection circuitry, called "LightDrive" keeps the
amplifier out of dangerous distortion levels by reducing the output if the
volume is turned up too high.

The amplifier uses a single toroidal transformer rated at
0.8 kVA (800 watts), and a total of 60,000 μF of power supply capacitance,
with ± 70
volts on the capacitors. This represents 147 joules of energy storage for
the Savoy.

The front panel has a button for Standby Power (the main
power on/off toggle is on the rear panel), and a button to change the range
that the channel level indicators will show. So, if you are playing soft
music, you can still read the relative output levels which show up as red
lights above the name for each channel.

The rear panel shows that the amplifier is a modular design. Each connection
board has an RCA input, an RCA output (for daisy chaining, such as bi-amping),
an XLR input, and a pair of five-way speaker binding posts.

The main on/off toggle can be seen in the upper right corner, with the fuse
and grounded AC receptacle underneath.